By Ijaz Ahmad (Editor-in-Chief)

TORONTO, Jun 20: A record-breaking 37,832 attendees from 117 countries of the world turned up including Pakistan in Collision-2024 in Toronto this year well before Web Summit Vancouver takes over next year in May 2025.
There were a lot of enthusiasts from a record-breaking 1,834 companies exhibited on the event floor, including startups from 57 countries and global partners such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Dell and Snowflake.
With huge encouragement from the female attendees as a total of 45 percent of exhibiting startups are women-founded, 42 percent of attendees are women, and 35 percent of speakers are women besides 1,003 members of the media are cover talks from 570 speakers, who joined by 739 investors and 37,832 attendees from 117 countries.
The final Collision event has reached a new record, gathering 37,832 attendees from 117 countries, which tell the actual success behind the overall work being done by the organizers. This will be the last Collision event and its final year in Toronto, before it transitions to Web Summit Vancouver in May 2025.
Collision’s women in tech program have been running since 2016, and at this year’s event, there is a dedicated woman in tech meet-up area to facilitate networking and making connections.
It is worth mentioning here that 1,623 startups from 57 countries have put their exhibit on the floor over three days of Collision, the highest number of startups at any Collision event. Almost 200 startups are attending through the Impact program – which brings together the most promising climate tech, health tech and deep tech startups within the space – and 370 startups at Collision are Black- or Indigenous-founded.
The participating startups are taking part in 57 Mentor Hours Sessions and nine startup master-classes during the event which largely attracted the audiences as well. Some of the most well-known companies – including AWS, Microsoft, Snowflake and Dell – will exhibit on the Collision event floor, as well as trade delegations from countries around the world, including Italy, Taiwan, the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong, Latvia, Japan, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Uruguay and Austria.
“It’s incredible to go out on such a high for our final Collision event. We have more startups than ever before in Toronto this year, connecting and exchanging ideas about the technology and trends shaping the world. I’m incredibly proud of the growth we’ve seen and the growth in representation, said Karla Pequenino while talking to News-TimesHD and SportsLines.
Startup participation has grown 50 percent over the six years we’ve been in Toronto, and this year, we’ve broken an incredible record, as 45 percent of our startups are women-founded,” said Paddy Cosgrave, founder and CEO of Web Summit.
“At a time when technology is interwoven into every aspect of our lives and is advancing more rapidly than ever before, and with an uncertain future ahead, gathering diverse groups of people to exchange ideas and perspectives, learn from one another, and help forge a path forward where everyone in society is enhanced, not harmed, by innovation, is essential,” he continued.
Investors, speakers and media Collision is hosting 570 speakers this year, including Aidan Gomez, founder and CEO of Cohere; Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI; and Maria Sharapova, the legendary Tennis star, and entrepreneur. Elsewhere, 1,003 journalists from outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, The Guardian and Al Jazeera, as well as 739 investors from some of the world’s biggest funds, are in attendance.
Top investors at the event include Vinod Khosla, founder of Khosla Ventures; Wesley Chan, co-founder and managing partner of FPV Ventures; and Nigel Morris, co-founder and managing partner of QED Investors, all of whom featured on the Forbes Midas List. As many as 1,762 investors to startup meeting requests have been made for Collision 2024 so far, said Catarina Margarido.

Community partnerships and our Indigenous attendee program 42 community partners are taking part in Collision 2024, and the number of local and national grassroots organizations and groups participating in the program has grown exponentially since 2019, when just two groups attended. Community partners at this year’s event include Black Founders Network, Colorintech, Scale Without Borders and The Tech Effect.
Collision’s Indigenous attendee program is also returning for a third year to amplify the voices of Indigenous communities in Canada, and to contribute towards building a more just and fair tech ecosystem. Since the program’s beginnings in 2022, Collision has distributed hundreds of free tickets to Indigenous leaders, founders, investors and operators in the tech space.

Collision is considered the single most important tech deal-making event in the world, gathering the next generation of leaders reshaping the world. Half a million people have attended Web Summit events – Web Summit in Europe, Web Summit Rio in South America, Collision in North America, Web Summit Qatar in the Middle East, and RISE in Asia – since the company’s beginnings as a 150-person conference in Dublin in 2009.
Web Summit’s mission is to enable the meaningful connections that change the world. Web Summit also undertakes a range of initiatives to support diversity, equality and inclusion across the tech worlds, including Impact, women in tech, Amplify, our scholarship program, and our community partnerships.